National Geographic Kids

National Geographic Kids is a great site for finding information, images, and videos related to the K-5 integrated units. Teachers can use the site as a teaching tool during instruction. Students can visit the site to explore and learn. Students can also use information from the site for research projects. I recommend visiting the site and looking at three sections:

1. Animals & Pets (All grades)

Hover over the tab and click All. Use the tabs to the left to sort the animals by type such as Dinosaurs, Invertebrates etc. or by habitat such as Forest, Ocean etc. Once sorted, click on an animal and click on the arrows to scroll through the text and images. Visit the Video & Sound tab as well as the Map tab for more learning. Older students can click on Print this Creature tab to view facts for research projects. In order to get back to the library of animals, teach students to use the blue back arrow in Internet Explorer and click to resort the animals.

2. Countries (1st-4th)

Hover over the tab and click All. Select a continent to sort the countries. Select a country to view facts, images, and videos. Older students can click on print this feature to view facts about geography, history, people & culture etc. for research projects.

3. Community (4th-5th)
Hover over the tab and click Blogs. There are several blogs written by students. Click on the title such as Dog Eared, Green Scene, Hands-On Explorer, etc. and view current and previous posts. Leave comments as well!

National Geographic has a magazine for K-1 teachers and students called National Geographic Young Explorer! Their website has interactive versions of their current and past issues for free! When you visit the site, click on More Issues to view the most current issues and scroll to the bottom to find a second page of Past Issues. There are frogs, butterflies, coral reef, habitats and more! So many connections to our curriculum!

For this weeks post, visit the website and tell us how you plan to use it with students. What connections did you find to your grade level curriculum? 

iPod Flash Cards

One day Kimberly and I were talking and somehow the idea of creating flash cards came up. She suggested creating flash cards for students to access using their iPods. While searching online she came across Mr. Coley's website. After looking at his site we figured he must be single because how could he maintain such a wonderful classroom website. (His website shows he is married with children. How does he do it?) Mr. Coley has been kind enough to give us directions on how to create flash cards for our students using PowerPoint. He also has a library of flash cards that he has created. I was eager to try it myself and realized that in addition to parents/students putting the flash cards on an iPod, I could e-mail the PowerPoint presentation or JPEGs to parents and they could then open the attachments on their cell phone and allow their child to practice their math facts or spelling words in the car or grocery store. They could also access them on their home computer. There are so many ways to help our students succeed!

For this weeks post:

Explain how you could see yourself using/creating flash cards for your students. How would you provide access to your cards for parents/students? Give it a try using his directions/tutorials and let us know your successes and challenges.

Finding Resources Through RSS Feeds

I love RSS feeds! I subscribe to several and I am always finding new ideas for the elementary classroom. (To learn more about RSS Feeds, click here.) My two favorite blogs are Free Technology for Teachers and iLearn Technology. Recently Richard Byrne, author of Free Tech for Teachers, blogged about a fabulous resource. It is full of Web 2.0 tools organized by function such as podcasting or blogging as well as by topic such as fair use or privacy. Click here to read about the STHS Library Guides' collection of Web 2.0 tools.

I also enjoy free e-books. Richard Byrne has posted several e-books. One of my favorites is The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators. It is written by bloggers, teachers, and school administrators. Click here to read his blog post about the book and links to the authors' website/blog. Two of the authors, Kelly Tenkely (former elementary teacher, current technology integration specialist) and Lee Kolbert (elementary teacher) have blogs that I follow as well. (Click on their name to see their blog.) All three have wonderful ideas and resources for elementary classrooms. For this weeks post, explore the Web 2.0 tools OR read through The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators. Read about the resources in the Elementary School section and the Blogging in Elementary School Classrooms section. Tell us your Top 3 resources for classroom use. How could you use these tools with your students?